


and the stars led me back to you

by Pandelion



Category: Bleach
Genre: Established Relationship, Getting Back Together, M/M, Space AU, falling in love was never part of the mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28490703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandelion/pseuds/Pandelion
Summary: The last time he'd seen Kurosaki Ichigo, it had been through a hatch door window as his escape pod detached fromZangetsu, blood matting Ichigo's hair and streaming down his face, ruined wrist pressed against the transparasteel, eyes wide and betrayed and confused.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 16
Kudos: 134





	and the stars led me back to you

“Unidentified ship, this is Karakura Station. Please state your callsign and intent.”

“Karakura, this is _Tiburón_ ,” Nelliel says into the mic. The whole bridge is quiet, tense. Six days in the black, half rations, limping along on barely more than one engine, it’s been a long trip back to the possibility of safety. “Requesting permission to dock for repairs and aid for all hands.”

The comms are silent for a long minute. Grimmjow stares out the bulkhead screen, eyes fixed on the distant glow of the star that Karakura orbits.

“Can...can you repeat that callsign?” The voice seems unsure, now.

Nelliel looks over her shoulder at Harribel. Grimmjow doesn’t see what Harribel does, but Nelliel nods and turns back to her station. “This is _Tiburón_ , Karakura,” she says. “Requesting permission to dock for repairs and aid for all hands aboard.”

Grimmjow doesn’t blame the station, not really. The last sixty years have not exactly endeared Aizen to the rest of the galaxy, nor the force designated as his enforcers, the Espada. The arrival of an Espada ship at a station not fully aligned with Aizen is never good news for the station. And Karakura Station has reason to be more wary than other stations.

But needs must and they could only hope that Karakura would take the risk.

“ _Tiburón_ , this is Karakura Station,” a different voice says, a little older, calmer than the first one. “You are clear to dock at berth two. Please disengage manual control and allow station lock to guide you in. We had a meteor shower last week and there's still a bit of damage we’d like to steer clear of.”

Grimmjow snorts, near silent. Meteor damage, sure. But it’s a reasonable way to ask for them to lock down their systems and it’s a peaceable way for Harribel to show good faith. Not like they have much in the way of options, anyway.

“Acknowledged, Karakura,” Nelliel says after another quick look at Harribel. “Transmitting approach vectors.”

“See you shortly, _Tiburón_ ,” the station replies.

Then they sit back, let Sung-Sun finesse them into position, watch the control stations go half dark as systems go into standby and the station locks on, takes control. 

Grimmjow deliberately taps into the cameras, throws the outside visuals up on the wall. And look at that, none of the damage and scuffs visible on the station’s docking equipment look recent. Mila Rose snorts from her station and Grimmjow smiles a little.

Docking takes a few minutes, but then Harribel is getting up and the rest of the usual away team is following. Grimmjow’s not actually part of the crew, but he follows Harribel and the others and she doesn’t tell him to stay.

The hatch tessellates open, revealing the dock beyond and the welcoming contingent waiting for them, dressed in station blacks and each and every one of them carrying stunners at their hip.

One of them steps forward, a green robe drifting around his shoulders and a hat pulled low over his eyes. “Ah, welcome, Espada,” he says, eyes on Harribel. “Welcome to Karakura Station. I am Stationmaster Urahara Kisuke.”

She nods at him, regal. “Thank you, Stationmaster,” she says, easy like it doesn’t gall to be in someone else’s debt, at someone else’s mercy. “I am Captain Harribel. This is Commander Nelliel.”

Urahara nods to Nelliel, who tips her head in response, before returning his attention to Harribel. “I understand you requested aid when you asked permission to dock.”

“Yes,” Harribel says. “You doubtless have received the reports on our status. Our port and stern engines are dead, electrical is spotty, life support is available in less than half of the craft. My crew has been on half rations for nearly a week. I do not ask more than you can spare, but I do request time to repair my ship. We will leave as soon as possible.”

It’s a lot more upfront than Grimmjow would have been, but again. Not his ship. Not his crew, except for the few he’d brought with him. This is Harribel’s show, right now.

Urahara nods, slow. “Time you will have,” he says, slow. “We are largely self-sufficient, but it has been a good year. Your crew will have all the food and care they need.”

Grimmjow sees the tense line of Harribel’s shoulders ease, just a fraction. She’s a good captain, he thinks. She cares about her crew, about her ship. Knowing that they won’t lose any more is a huge relief.

She bows, head down. “Thank you,” she says again, too honest. Grimmjow looks away from the curved line of her back, takes in the dock room, the exposed beams and metal plating, the machines tucked away. Everything is worn down and well-used, none of it the tidy paint and gleaming chrome that he’s used to on stations closer to Aizen’s throne.

Former throne, he reminds himself. Apparently his efforts hadn’t made much difference to the outcome. He’s still not sure how to feel about that.

“Apache,” Harribel is saying. “Inform the crew. The whole crew.” A subtle way of including Grimmjow’s men. The corner of his mouth twitches. “The rest of you, with me.”

Then they’re moving, following Urahara and the other men who keep looking at Harribel, at the rest of them, quiet and wary and one hand on their stunners. The halls are too narrow for them to surround the crew, though, and Grimmjow and the others end up in the middle, Urahara and some of his men up front, the rest of them behind.

Most stations follow a similar layout and Karakura is no exception. They emerge from the docks to the broad main corridor, branching off in different directions to the living quarters, the common spaces, to whatever else a station needs to survive.

Urahara leads them into what looks like the common spaces, a large kitchen glimpsed through an open door, tables and benches laid out like a mess hall, spaces that are clearly set aside for socializing and play. “I apologize,” he says. “But our meeting room is not terribly large. If the rest of you would not mind waiting out here, I’ll escort the Captain and Commander in to discuss the terms of your stay with our council.”

Harribel looks at Grimmjow and he shrugs. He doesn’t mind being left out of the political aspects. It’s boring and he has little patience for the sort of double-talk that politicians of all sorts enjoy. Harribel and Nelliel will be much better suited to negotiating and he’s got enough trust in them that he’s sure they won’t fuck him or his men over.

“That would be acceptable,” Harribel tells Urahara.

The three of them walk on until Urahara leads them around a corner and they’re out of view. Grimmjow glances after the crew, who are making a beeline for an empty lounge area, then snorts a little. Like hell he’s going to hang around with them. He turns around and heads back out into the station. The other men that had greeted them had dispersed at some point in their walk, so there’s no one to tell him he’s not allowed.

He finds a bench in what appears to be an atrium, all lights and triple-paned glass looking out into the dark of space, filled with living green and set-stone paths. The plants could be more than ornamental, he thinks he recognizes the fruit budding in more than one tree, but it looks nothing like the hydroponics he’s familiar with.

It’s peaceful enough, quiet with just the background thrum of station life. Quieter than the ship, where the engines are a constant reminder of their continued existence.

The last time he saw this much greenery, he thinks, was planetside. Colony, civil dispute, Espada Six had been sent in to remind the relevant parties that their differences paled in comparison to Aizen’s decrees. And after that, the only greenery in his life outside of broccoli from the mess hall had been the little tree -  _ bonsai _ \- in quarters that were decorated with too much sentimentality to be his.

It’s been two years since then.

Grimmjow takes a breath of fresh air, letting it out slow.

"You've got a lot of nerve, showing up here." 

The voice is almost expected, with the path his thoughts had taken. Grimmjow turns his head just enough to see the man it belongs to, dressed in station blacks that make him look even paler than Grimmjow remembers. He’s stark against the greenery around them.

"Shiro."

"Kurosaki," Shiro corrects with a sneer. "You don't get to call me Shiro anymore,  _ traitor _ ."

Grimmjow tips his head. Fair enough. He hadn't exactly left on good terms; people don't tend to take kindly to double agents who attack their captain when his back is turned. Not that the surprise had been enough to give Grimmjow the advantage in the end. "Kurosaki, then. Did your better half make it back, too?"

Shiro grins then, wide and mean. "Why, wanna try and finish what you started?”

“Nah,” Grimmjow says with a shrug, relishes the flash of surprise in Shiro’s eyes. It’s hard to surprise Shiro, he remembers. “I failed. Aizen doesn’t -  _ didn’t _ \- send failures out to try again. Espada Four was assigned the follow-up, I think.”

_ I think _ , he says, as if he hadn’t followed that mission with all the attentiveness of an adjuchas on a blood-scent. He’d been confined to medical for nearly a month, had spent his little free time with his nose glued to a tablet, hacking into the mission updates and reports that Ulquiorra submitted. At the time, he’d told himself that it was to see whether Ulquiorra could succeed where he’d failed, if his failure had been his own fault or because they’d underestimated the goal.

That reasoning hadn’t held up to the relief he’d felt when Ulquiorra’s final report was the auto-transmission from his tracker:  _ asset destroyed, mission failed _ .

Shiro’s giving him a look, that inscrutable, assessing gaze that he’d hated so much, because he’d never known if it was leading to a joke or an insult. No amount of mission briefing could have prepared him for Kurosaki Shiro and, two years after the fact, he’s realizing that not even experience with the man could prepare him.

“Knew he was a dick,” Shiro says eventually, mouth twisting with reluctant amusement. Grimmjow huffs, feels his mouth curl in response.

“You have no idea,” he says. His shoulder doesn’t hurt, hasn’t hurt in over a year. It still feels a bit like it should.

“But yeah, batboy was a piece of work,” Shiro says and are they commiserating? Grimmjow thinks this is commiserating. It feels weird. “Guess even the elite enforcers have bad coworkers, huh?”

“You have no idea,” Grimmjow says again, thinking about Szayelapporo, about Yammy Llargo. Bad doesn’t do them justice.

“Guess you’re not that horrible, compared to them,” Shiro hums, rocking back on his heels.

“Careful,” Grimmjow says. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”

Another smile, just as wide as before and all teeth, but it’s almost playful this time. “I haven’t gone soft since you saw me last, Espada,” Shiro says. “In case you were worried about that.”

“You? Soft? Perish the thought,” Grimmjow says, dry. That gets him a laugh and it almost sounds genuine.

“Never,” Shiro says. He hums again, glances over his shoulder towards the rest of the station, back at Grimmjow. “Walk with me, Espada.”

Requests are never optional with Kurosaki Shiro, Grimmjow remembers. He gets up, follows when Shiro starts walking. Keeps his hands in his pockets.

“Figured we wouldn’t see Espada again, out here,” Shiro says after a few minutes of walking in silence. “Considering how far we are from the core.”

“Yeah, well. We weren’t expecting to be out this far, either,” Grimmjow says. “But it turns out that if you topple a dictator off his throne, the ripples reach a long ways out.”

“Oh, right,” Shiro says, voice full of false realization. “Someone put a blade through his neck, didn’t they? Good on them.”

Grimmjow nearly rolls his eyes.  _ Someone _ . “Yeah, well, put me out of a job,” he says. He's not entirely broken up about it, all things considered, but it's been a really big inconvenience, going from being widely feared and respected to reviled and shunned. Doors that had once opened were now shut to him.

"We can't all be big damn heroes," Shiro says blithely. He makes a turn off the main corridor into what looks like a more private area. Not as brightly lit, more worn down. Somewhere, a child laughs, the sound abruptly cut off after a few seconds.

Living quarters, Grimmjow realizes as they pass door after door, a couple of branching halls showing only more doors. Apartment style, judging by the spacing and the numbering system.

"Kurosaki," he starts, but Shiro slants a look over his shoulder and Grimmjow shuts up. Whatever Shiro is doing, he's not about to explain himself to Grimmjow.

Shiro doesn't lead him to one of the doors, though, just keeps passing them until they emerge out into another area that's all bright lights and greenery. A community garden, this time, plants growing in raised beds, planted in rows, peas and peppers and red tomatoes.

Grimmjow pauses at the doorway as Shiro continues in, striding down the path until he turns and is lost behind a line of large bushes. There's a sneaking suspicion, in the back of Grimmjow's mind, but he doesn't dare look at it too close.

There's a murmur of voices from the direction of the bushes and Grimmjow finds his feet moving on their own, following the path Shiro had taken. He turns the corner, sees Shiro leaning against a young tree, face tipped down as he talks to the man kneeling next to a bed of… Grimmjow doesn't recognize the plant, wouldn't care except that it's a distraction from recognizing the gardener.

But the splash of tiger lily orange against so much green is hard to avoid and he finds himself following the line of a long braid - longer than he remembers, but right, it's been two years - up to the familiar curve of tanned skin.

He'd left a hickey right there, he remembers. It had lasted three days.

"Anyway, I brought ya something, Cap'n," Shiro is saying, amber eyes flicking up to Grimmjow. The gardener at his feet is turning, following the look, and Grimmjow tries to brace himself, knows it won't be enough.

He’s right. It’s almost a physical shock to see familiar eyes - one brown like he remembers, the other as gold as Shiro’s - in a face that was almost as familiar as his own for a while, that has lingered in his memories and his nightmares.

The last time he'd seen Kurosaki Ichigo, it had been through a hatch door window as his escape pod detached from  _ Zangetsu,  _ blood matting his hair and streaming down Ichigo's face, ruined wrist pressed against the transparasteel, eyes wide and betrayed and confused.

Seeing him now, whole and alive despite Aizen’s best effort… Grimmjow swallows, hands fisting in his pockets. 

“Hey,” he says, the name sticking in his throat like a physical lump.

He looks away from Ichigo’s eyes when there isn’t an immediate response, takes in the other changes from the last two years. The hair and the eye aren’t all that’s changed. There's a stripe of maroon down the left side of Ichigo’s face and throat, even though his sclera is white on both sides. There's a set of thin, jagged scars around the unmarked side of his throat, like someone or something had tried to rip it out.

There's another scar, just a single line, on his wrist where the sleeves of his station blacks have been rolled up. Grimmjow remembers the slide of a sharp blade through tendon and muscle, the hot flow of blood over metal and skin. Hime -  _ Inoue _ , he corrects himself - must have been able to repair most of the damage, since Ichigo seems to be using the hand normally.

Grimmjow pulls his gaze back up to eyes that are still wide, surprised and unsure and full of something that he doesn’t want to look at too closely. He takes a breath, tries again.

"Been a while, Ichigo.”

It comes out rough and entirely too soft for what he'd intended, but it's - there hadn't been any pictures that he could find, after. The images of Aizen had been distributed far and wide, a sword blade protruding through his pale throat, but there hadn't been any pictures of who had done it. None of the security footage had shown anything until Aizen toppled into view, already dead. And Grimmjow’s imagination has always been vivid.

"Grimmjow," Ichigo says finally and it sounds like every fantasy Grimmjow has buried over the last two years. "You - you're alive. You're here. How - ?"

"Long story," Grimmjow says, with a grimace that tries to be a smile. "We're just here for rest and repairs. Few days at most."

“The ship looked like they ran afoul of the Fullbringers,” Shiro volunteers, still leaning against the tree. “They limped in-system on thirty percent propulsion.”

Ichigo looks back at him. “You knew and didn’t tell me?”

“It’s not my ship,” Grimmjow says before Shiro can say more. “ _ Pantera _ is…”  _ Gone. Dead. The feel of a ship gone silent around him, watching her implode in silence from the escape pod _ . “We’re hitching a ride with Harribel. Espada Three.” In case Ichigo had forgotten.

“I’m sorry,” Ichigo says, turning back to Grimmjow, eyes soft with - not pity, never pity, but...sympathy. Grimmjow can accept sympathy, as uncomfortable as it is. “I - sorry, I’m covered in dirt,” he says, pushing up to his feet, brushing off his blacks like Grimmjow cares about a bit of dirt. 

Behind Ichigo, Grimmjow catches Shiro rolling his eyes, feels his mouth quirk in reciprocal amusement, and it’s almost - it’s almost like he’s back on the ship with them, he and Shiro occasionally united in affectionately mocking Ichigo for being so soft and concerned with propriety.

Ichigo glances between them, rolls his own eyes, but he’s almost smiling when he focuses on Grimmjow again. “Well, however you got here, I’m glad you’re still alive,” he says and Grimmjow’s whole body flushes hot.

He’d forgotten. He’d forgotten what it felt like, having Ichigo look at him like that, all sincerity and open-heart. He’s not sure he’ll survive the reminder.

“You shouldn’t be,” he says before he can think better of it. “I tried to kill you.”

Shiro’s quiet, watching, but Grimmjow keeps half an eye on him anyway. Grimmjow has no doubt that Shiro would do anything to protect Ichigo and it’s probably a major miracle to have been allowed this close to start with.

Ichigo, on the other hand, seems to be going through a riot of emotions, each and every one flitting across his face like he’d learned nothing in the last two years. Surprise and sorrow and anger and frustration and a few others that make Grimmjow’s chest ache.

“Yeah,” Ichigo says after a long minute. “About that. We did some research, after you - after you left.”

Grimmjow keeps quiet. He’d figured as much. His position as an Espada had been the only thing he’d lied about, after all, stood to reason that they’d want to learn the whole truth once he'd shown his true colors.

“If you’d actually tried to kill me,” Ichigo continues, crossing his arms. “I would be dead, because you wouldn’t have done it in the middle of the mess hall at dinner and you would have used something more lethal than a steak knife.”

Grimmjow goes still. He’d done his best to make it convincing, to make it a legitimate effort, but after almost a year on  _ Zangetsu _ , after months of falling asleep with Ichigo breathing soft and warm against his collarbone, after earning enough respect from Shiro to be invited to spar in the gym… After all that, he hadn’t been able to make himself slip a knife into Ichigo’s heart in the middle of the night and it hadn’t just been the fact that he detested such underhanded attacks.

“If you’d actually tried to kill me,” Ichigo is saying again. He steps forward, closer to Grimmjow, who is frozen in place, watching him. “You wouldn’t be here, looking at me like that.”

_ Like what _ , Grimmjow wants to ask.  _ How do I look at you?  _ But his voice has deserted him, his throat dry and tight as he watches Ichigo get closer. He keeps his hands in his pockets, 

There are scant inches left between them when Ichigo stops, head tilted up just that little amount needed to look Grimmjow in the eye. “I told myself, if I ever saw you again,” Ichigo says, soft “That I’d punch you for lying to me, to us.”

Grimmjow nods mutely. That seems fair. It’s probably the least of what he deserves.

“Now that you’re actually here, though, I don’t think I can do it,” Ichigo says, smile a little lopsided. “We didn’t hear anything after...I thought you were dead.”

Grimmjow swallows hard. He knows that feeling, knows that no news isn't always good news, that without any further proof of life, it's so very easy to assume proof of death.

“Gods, you’re both useless,” Shiro says and Grimmjow has half a second to see what’s coming before Shiro’s bumping roughly against Ichigo’s back, shoving him forward into Grimmjow, who brings his arms up in sheer reflex to catch him.

And then he freezes again because there it is, out in the open, bright against Ichigo’s sleeve. Shiro’s stopped, eyes wide and fixed where Grimmjow’s holding onto Ichigo, and Grimmjow’s managed to surprise him again. Twice in one day, that’s got to be some sort of record.

“Grimmjow,” Ichigo says, head turning to where he can probably feel the difference between Grimmjow’s grips. “Your hand…”

Grimmjow takes a breath, lets it out slow. Steps back from Ichigo, lets go of him. He’s had almost two years to get used to it, but it still catches him off-guard sometimes, other people’s reactions to it.

“Aizen doesn’t -  _ didn’t _ \- reward failure,” he says, looks down at his fingers so he doesn’t have to see the pity on either of their faces.

His hand - his whole left arm, really, from fingertips to the joint of his shoulder - is a marvel of engineering, an incredibly intricate piece of technology that mimics a biological arm to an incredible degree, even to the point of being hooked into the neural impulses that control movement. As natural as it could be, given it’s all glittering chrome and blackplate, filling in for the arm that Aizen had taken in punishment for his failure. Harribel and Nelliel had been steadfast in the face of Grimmjow's refusal of their charity, after Aizen's death. He’s still not sure how he’ll pay them back for it.

“Because you didn’t kill me,” Ichigo fills in.

Grimmjow flexes his fingers, makes a fist. “Yeah.”

Tanned fingers smeared with dirt wrap around his metal ones, gentle but unhesitating, and Grimmjow looks up in surprise. Ichigo’s other hand comes up, fingers sliding against Grimmjow’s jaw, the one with the tattoo, his fingertips rough with callus, but the touch so gentle and so familiar that it takes all of Grimmjow’s willpower to not turn into it, to not press a kiss to Ichigo’s palm like he might have, before.

“I’m sorry,” Ichigo says and Grimmjow doesn’t get a chance to say  _ No, I’m the one who should be apologizing _ , because Ichigo’s leaning in and up and then there are soft lips against his and Grimmjow has spent two years trying to forget how this felt and failing.

Grimmjow gives in to it almost embarrassingly fast, his free hand coming up to grip at Ichigo’s hip, head tipping down the couple of centimeters needed to make it more comfortable for Ichigo, mouth opening when Ichigo’s does.

He doesn’t deserve this, he knows, but he’s too selfish to deny it.

Fingers slide around and into his hair, tilt his head a little more so that Ichigo can deepen the kiss. Grimmjow wraps his arm around Ichigo’s waist in response, pulling him in as close as possible.

He’s missed this so much.

Eventually, they pull apart, but they don’t pull away, Grimmjow’s forehead pressed against Ichigo’s, breathing the same air. Grimmjow pulls his hand away from Ichigo’s, carefully thumbs warm metal against the trail of red under Ichigo’s eye, settles the palm of his hand against Ichigo’s cheek.

“You gave too much,” he murmurs.

“I gave as much as was necessary,” Ichigo says, smiling a little. “And it was worth it.”

Grimmjow doesn’t bother debating it. He’s hit his head against the concrete wall that is Ichigo when he’s sure he made the right choice before, he’s not inclined to do it again.

Ichigo hums, low, nudges his nose against Grimmjow’s. “Stay?” he asks, quiet.

“What, you don’t think I’ll try to kill you again?” Grimmjow asks. Off to the side, Shiro snorts, but Grimmjow is ignoring him for now. He said it as a joke, but it’s a real enough question.

“If you do, I’ve learned a few new tricks over the last couple of years,” Ichigo says and Grimmjow can almost feel the shape of his smile.

“You’ll have to show me,” he says and Ichigo laughs a little.

There’s a lot to make up for, a lot to catch up on. He wants to know about the scars on Ichigo’s skin that he doesn’t recognize, about the fate of the rest of the crew that had treated him as one of their own for a whole year, knows that Ichigo will have questions about his arm, about what happened to his ship.

“Only if you stay,” Ichigo says and Grimmjow closes his eyes.

It’s not that easy, Grimmjow knows. He has his remaining crew to think about, he’s never lived on a station for more than a month before, the other residents of Karakura probably won’t be as eager to have a former Espada living among them. And he’s sure there are other things he hasn’t thought about that will come up.

But even with all that, it’s still so very easy. 

“Yeah, okay,” he says. “I’ll stay.”

Ichigo’s grin is blinding even through closed eyes.


End file.
